Michael Kirk — "RFK Jr.'s Latest Addiction: Attention"

Summary

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The Gist — Michael Kirk: "RFK Jr.'s Latest Addiction: Attention"

Date: October 21, 2025
Host: Mike Pesca
Guest: Michael Kirk, Frontline Documentary Director

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Gist centers on the new Frontline documentary "The Rise of RFK Jr.," directed by veteran filmmaker Michael Kirk. Host Mike Pesca and Kirk dig into the complex life and political trajectory of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., from the personal demons that shaped him to his current controversial position in American public health policy. They provide a richly detailed, sometimes sobering analysis of how RFK Jr.'s search for attention, validation, and redemption has rippled out into broader issues of democracy, science, and public trust.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. RFK Jr.: From Tragedy to Attention-Seeker

• The “Who” of RFK Jr.
  Michael Kirk frames the documentary’s core quest as understanding who RFK Jr. really is beyond his high-profile family and public roles.

  “Most daily journalism answers, you know, when, how, where. But not who really is this? Who is he?...Who is the guy you see before you now? The most famous Kennedy since his uncle and his father, and the most powerful Kennedy since those two… Who is this guy? And in a way, it's also the how did this happen?”
  —Michael Kirk [12:53]

• Inherited Trauma & Repeated Addiction
  Kirk notes RFK Jr.’s adolescence was marked by profound trauma (his uncle JFK and father RFK assassinated), leading to self-medication and various addictions—first drugs, then sex, and more recently, attention and adulation.

  “You're kind of halfway dead inside from what's happened to you as a kid through no fault of your own. And sex becomes a kind of regular…problem for him. Then it becomes adulation. Addiction could become really, really, really famous. Leads you to do all kinds of things to be adored.”
  —Michael Kirk [18:20]

  “He finds himself once again in the pit of some kind of an addiction. Whether it's addiction or whatever it is, it's a need for a dopamine hit.”
  —Michael Kirk [19:09]

2. Life Without Consequence

• A Pattern of Escaping Accountability
  Pesca and Kirk discuss how RFK Jr. benefited from protective privilege and endless second chances, a theme highlighted by journalist Rebecca Traister in the film.

  “Who he is is a guy who was afforded so many second, third or fourth chances and lived a life without consequence, which might seem weird. He had so much tragedy in his life.”
  —Mike Pesca [14:04]

  “A lot of it is the deeply held and psychological belief that he's a kind of enlightened and safe presence…And it had to be in there along with all the other friends and powerful people who like him and say he's a wonderful person.”
  —Michael Kirk [15:04]

• Self-Destructive Impulses RFK Jr. was “regularly being groomed to be a political figure” but “without fail would trapdoor these, these moments. He would blow up. And it is the recurring theme…that Bobby either intentionally or kind of unintentionally pulls the trapdoor on himself every time he got sort of close.”
  —Michael Kirk [25:40]

3. High-profile Scandals and Addictions

• Sex Addiction & The Journal
  The episode delves into the infamous journal RFK Jr. kept, tallying his extramarital affairs, which became public after his late wife’s family released it.

  “He keeps a journal for a year, keeping track, almost like a scorecard of how many every day, all day long…She [his wife] broke into the safe…hands the journal to her sisters for safekeeping. But released to the press if something bad should befall her.”
  —Michael Kirk [21:29–23:08]

  “Well, he sleeps with 16 of her friends and keeps score of all of them. So that probably helps.”
  —Mike Pesca [23:04]

4. Conspiracies as a Slot for Attention

• Seeding Vaccine Conspiracies and Prior Claims
  They recall that long before his anti-vaccine crusade, RFK Jr. pushed conspiracy theories about the 2004 presidential election.

  “RFK Jr. Made the case in Rolling Stone…that this was a stolen election, that Kerry should have won Ohio, he should have won, if the votes were counted correctly, he should have won the presidency. Even John Kerry doesn't sign on.”
  —Mike Pesca [24:10]

  Kirk suggests this was a precursor to his later vaccine activism and broader embrace of fringe positions.

5. The COVID Era: A New Kind of Rise

• From Margins to Center—Then to Trump
  During the COVID-19 pandemic, RFK Jr.'s anti-vaccine messaging found renewed energy, aligning with rising American skepticism of government mandates.

  “It was the moment for Bobby Kennedy of his whole life…the idea that suddenly warp speed was happening and vaccines were going to be injected in people…And Bobby jumped on that…And now vaccines are going to be my ticket to ride.”
  —Michael Kirk [29:54]

  • However, deplatforming on social media cut him off. “That's the moment that he decides to run for president. Why? Because you got to let a guy who runs for president back on major media…as somebody in the film says, that's the craziest reason I've ever heard to run for president.”
    —Michael Kirk [32:10]

6. Alliance with Trump & The 'Maha' Movement

• Deal with Trump and MAGA
  When RFK Jr. lacked a Democratic future, he found an alliance with Trump’s MAGA movement, rebranding part of the coalition as “Maha moms”—anti-vaccine, ex-liberal converts.

  “His biggest issues, vaccines for sure, will be silenced and he will be silenced if he doesn't find somebody to hitch his star to. And that somebody had to be Donald Trump...He, Bobby Kennedy, could act kind of on his own over in the world of health and as Del Bigtree, his closest advisor...said, build a whole wing onto the MAGA side of the party. That's kind of a Bobby Kennedy wing. That's the Maha wing.”
  —Michael Kirk [34:58]

• Staying Power Questioned
  Pesca and Kirk speculate whether RFK Jr. can maintain his alliance with Trump and avoid another personal or political implosion.

  “How long has he gone without self-destructing?”
  —Mike Pesca [36:31]

  “Self destructing is something he almost always does in some way.”
  —Michael Kirk [36:35]

7. Impact on Public Health Institutions

• Real-World Effects at HHS/CDC
  Now, as head of Health and Human Services, RFK Jr. has already gutted vaccine advisory councils, seen high-profile resignations (including the CDC director), and made it harder for children to access vaccines.

  “It's harder for children to get the COVID vaccine, including ones with preconditions...There's more friction to getting vaccines...How much of his anti-vaccine agenda has he implemented?” —Mike Pesca [42:51]

  Kirk observes that it's not outright bans, but “the signals, it's the misinformation...it undermines confidence in science and in fact-based…reasoning.”
  —Michael Kirk [43:21]

  “If he's really wrong...millions and millions and millions of lives all over the world are at stake.”
  —Michael Kirk [45:41]

8. What Comes Next?

• Further Policy & Culture-War Targets
  Kirk indicates RFK Jr. hasn't yet turned heavily to food regulation but is moving quickly on his anti-vaccine agenda. The future remains uncertain, with rumors of ambitions for a 2028 presidential run.

  “People tell us that his PAC is talking about Kennedy for President in ‘28 movement. Of course they would be talking about it”
  —Michael Kirk [36:35]

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On the documentary’s core question:
  “The big one was who? Who is he?”
  —Michael Kirk [12:53]

• On “addiction to validation”:
  “He needed it and he did it. And that's what it was.”
  —Michael Kirk [32:10]

• On RFK Jr.'s unique gift for self-sabotage:
  “He would blow up. And it is the recurring theme inside the biography that…Bobby either intentionally or…unintentionally pulls the trapdoor on himself every time he got sort of close.”
  —Michael Kirk [25:40]

• On dangers of the new era:
  “Doctors worry about it, insurance companies worry about it…You're already arguing at some level that is about just having the argument as you look at it. This is causing doctors to have to explain the most basic elements of medical care that we've had for a generation or two, which is your little kid needs a tetanus shot…If he's really wrong…millions and millions and millions of lives all over the world are at stake.”
  —Michael Kirk [43:21, 45:41]

• On what to expect from RFK Jr.:
  “I don't know. I don't think he really knows that we know of…His creation of Maha, basically, as he ran, as he started to run…he's moving as fast as he can through the anti vax world now that he's there.”
  —Michael Kirk [45:55–46:36]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Discussion of RFK Jr.’s biography/personal demons:
  [12:53–21:16]
• The Journal & Marital Scandal:
  [21:16–24:10]
• Vaccine conspiracy arc & political ambition:
  [24:10–32:10]
• Alliance with Trump and MAGA crossover:
  [34:34–38:18]
• Impact on public health policy:
  [42:28–45:52]
• Speculation on RFK Jr.'s next moves:
  [45:52–48:00]

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Tone and Style

Pesca’s signature combination of sharp skepticism and good humor keeps the conversation brisk, informed, and balanced—critically sympathetic to the subject’s pain but clear-eyed about the risks posed by RFK Jr.’s current influence. Kirk brings a documentarian’s rigor, careful not to over-psychoanalyze but nonetheless candid in assessing Kennedy’s patterns and the stakes for public health and democracy.

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Takeaways

• RFK Jr. is a study in the collision of trauma, privilege, addiction, and public influence.
• His rise is less a redemption arc than the mobilization of his need for attention at a time of cynical politics and polarized science.
• As head of HHS, his anti-vaccine stance is already eroding infrastructure, public trust, and access to vaccination, with implications far beyond political theater.
• RFK Jr.’s alliances, ambitions, and self-destructive impulses make his future—and the consequences for the nation—highly unpredictable.

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For a deeper dive into the personal and political complexities of RFK Jr., Michael Kirk’s “The Rise of RFK Jr.” is now streaming on Frontline.

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Transcript

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[Michael Kirk]

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[Michael Kirk]

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[Zoe]

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[Mike Pesca]

Data 182025 Visit t mobile.com if you like the gist. I think you do. I think you'll also like Risky Business, a podcast hosted by Nate Silver and Maria Konnikova. You know them, they're journalists who moonlight as high stakes poker players. Though that might be misstating where their incomes primarily come from. Tickets to poker. They talk about odds, incentives and outcomes. And they talk about democracy. You know, in politics, every move is a calculation. And sometimes our leaders can make bad bets. And sometimes we as citizens suffer bad beats. Check out Risky Business, available in your favorite podcast app. It's Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025, from Peach Fish Productions. It's the gist. I'm Mike Pesca. Big redistricting news. Not great news for the Democrats. So right now, North Carolina, which you might know from such past presidential elections as the last one and the last one before that as being a pretty close state. Also the one before that, before that, pretty close. Republican. Democrat. There's a Democratic governor. Not saying that it's 50 50, but it's probably 5248 Republican to Democrat. So they have 14 congressional seats. What should the breakdown be? Republican to Democrat? Ideally seven to seven. All right, eight to six I think the Democrats would take. Well, right now, 10 of the state's 14 congressional seats are controlled by Republicans. And after this redistricting, it's likely going to be 11. At issue the first district, which is held by Democrat Don Davis. He is black. The district is centered on all eight of the state's majority black counties, but it has been redistricted. And the reason why that is allowed is because, well, right now it's not, but it probably will be by the time North Carolina's voting laws go into effect is because just this week there was a case in front of the Supreme Court, Louisiana versus, and the Voting Rights act was to be decided. So for 60 something years, the voting Rights act was in effect, and especially in states in the former Confederacy. Although this part of the Voting Rights act applied everywhere, special consideration was given not to disenfranchise black voters and also black representatives. But the conservative majority on the Supreme Court are giving that a new look. And they're saying that the conditions of 2025 are very different from the conditions of the 1960s when there was quite active voter suppression. Not just the allegation that you have to show a driver's license, which 89% of adults have, and therefore, maybe we should not require that voting laws be written with a sensitivity to black voters or really by taking race into account in any dimension. Okay, Even if you think that that's a fair enough argument, how it actually shows up is something that's pretty unfair, we'd all agree, which is gerrymandering, which are states where the congressional delegation is entirely unrepresentative of the electorate. Now, I think that's important that states look a little. The representatives in the U.S. government represent to some extent the, to a large extent the voters of the state. But the only way to do this up until this point has been with regard to race. Now, in Louisiana, a third of the state's black, and they have six congressional seats, and right now, two of them are held by Democrats and they're both black representatives. So that is basically in line with the vote with the voters after their redistricting could become just one seat held by a Democrat who is black. In North Carolina right now, there are four Democrats from the state and three of them are members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Along with Davis, there's Alma Adams and Valerie Fuchsi. Now, you might hear that or you might think, in fact, without hearing it, it's just your brain telling you it's that out of 14 congressional districts in North Carolina, given that the state has 20 to 22% of its population being African American, that three out of 14, which is 21%, is a perfect percentage, perfectly representative. And you'd be right. However, you have to realize that if there were only two black representatives, it wouldn't be some massive mathematical violation of the overall representation of black people within the state. This is a problem of binomial distribution. But it actually turns out that if you're just randomly selecting, with 22% of the state being black, and assuming that if you get a congressional district that is majority black, they will vote for a black representative, that actually winds up happening less than three out of the 14 times. Quite often, almost a third or actually over a third of the time, you wouldn't even get three or more black representatives. Now, of course, two thirds of the time you would. But the right argument or the correct argument isn't something like, how often would this happen if congressional maps were drawn, ran randomly? Because congressional maps aren't drawn randomly. This is the point. In North Carolina and so many other states, they're drawn with the intent to favor the party that controls the state House. In one state, California, that can redraw its districts to favor more Democrats, that's what's being done. But in half a dozen other states, Louisiana, now North Carolina, we saw, of course, Texas, there's Missouri, it's being drawn to favor Republicans, and that is unfair.

[Michael Kirk]

Unfair.

[Mike Pesca]

The only way to remedy that in the past has been to make a racial argument, and now that is being taken away. But in the end, we're getting less representative government. It's also true that black Americans are being underrepresented, and that's important. But it's not the only thing that's important. By the way, I just looked at the prediction markets, and in April, there was an 80% chance that Democrats would take back the House. That is now down to under 50. Part of it is what I've been talking about, redistricting. Part of it is where Trump is in the polls. Part of it might just be, you know, these are betting markets. They don't necessarily know everything. I thought the Mariners were supposed to win based on betting markets a couple of games ago, but that's where we stand now, and it's not a good thing for democracy. There is always, however, I will say this. Perhaps you've read predictions that up to 19 seats can be lost in redistricting. 19 members of the Congressional Black Caucus not be reelected. I tend to think that's high. There's always counter mobilization, which is that voters do get a say and they do get to come out to the polls, and they do get to be informed that your state has been redistricted and gerrymandered, and you do have something to say about that. So that is one potential silver lining. But everything else that's going on, and I don't even say this from a Partizan perspective, just from the perspective of wanting to representatives in the House of Representatives who are representative this is not a great day nor is this a great trend for representation on the show today. Well, at least I have good news. RFK Jr. Is running HHS. We speak with Michael Kirk. He has done many documentaries for Frontline and in this case he looks at RFK Jr. In a documentary called the Rise of RFK Jr. In it he tackles RFK's sex addiction, his drug addiction and now his current addiction for validation, an addiction in which we all might be co enablers. Michael Kirk up next, Claude is oh, a pal, my AI assistant who has helped me with many tasks, tasks that you can see as say a GIST subscriber or a just listener. So on, on the Mike Pesca webpage we're starting to put together these little bundles to introduce the kind of interviews I do. I've done 10 years of shows so I don't know, I don't know about the groupings, I don't know about which were the good interviews. So I started loading information into Claude. I loaded luckily we have a spreadsheet that actually Claude help make loading information in asking Claude to suggest different combinations of different categories and it's not up yet, but it's going to get there and it really would have taken hours more without Claude and it wouldn't have been really, really good like I think it's going to be. So it thinks deeper about challenges than I would have. It is the sort of thing sometimes it does orthogonal thinking where I wouldn't have put this military expert and that science guy together and call it oh thought leaders. So Claude was I will divulge one of those services that I decided to pay for before I knew they would even advertise. And when they said, hey, you want to do an ad? I said, yeah. So I could say things like Claude Code is a game changer for developers. It works directly in your terminal and understands your entire code base and handles complex engineering tasks ready to tackle bigger problems. Sign up for Claude today and get 50% off Claude Pro when you use my link Claude AI slash the gist. That's Claude AI the gist right now for 50% off your first three months at Claude Pro. That includes access to all the features that I mentioned in today's episode. Claude AI Thegist.

[Brooke Gladstone]

There's a lot going on right now, mounting economic inequality, threats to democracy, environmental disaster, the sour stench of chaos in the air. I'm Brooke Gladstone, host of WNYC's on the Media. Want to understand the reasons and the meanings of the narratives that led us here and maybe how to head them off at the past? That's on the Media specialty. Take a listen wherever you get your podcasts.

[Mike Pesca]

Frontline has a new documentary out. If you know Frontline, I don't have to tell you, it's excellent. And it is called the Rise of RFK junior. What's weird about this is usually the arcs are the rise and fall and maybe redemption. But if you really think or get to know RFK through this documentary, it was mostly sadness and brokenness and trying to find something. And now late in life, he's experiencing his rise. To the rest of us, it might not be much of a rise. Michael Kirk is the director of this Frontline jam and he joins me now. Hello, Michael, how are you?

[Michael Kirk]

Hi. Very nice to be here. Thank you. I'm fine.

[Mike Pesca]

When you enter this, you always have a question that you're trying to answer. What was the question about rfk? Who?

[Michael Kirk]

So if regular TV and regular journalism is pretty good about, there's when you go to journalism school, you learn there's five questions, who, what, why, where, when, and how. And you're supposed to answer those questions. Most daily journalism answers, you know, when, how, where. But not who really is this? Who is he? Who is this guy who occasionally would show up in a crisis or show up in a moment of glory? You know, he saved the Hudson river, you know, his wife killed herself, he was a heroin addict, what, you know, all of it. So really, who, who is the guy you see before you now? The most famous Kennedy since his uncle and his father, and the most powerful Kennedy since those two, in charge of the health of millions of Americans and nearly $2 trillion. Who is this guy? And in a way, it's also the how did this happen? So that's what it was. But the big one was who? Who is he?

[Mike Pesca]

Because we could be deceived into thinking we know the who. And you would say at any point in the last dozen years, RFK junior People would have an image of him. People would either associate him with, depending on the stage of his career, what he was doing. Then riverkeepers are, oh, anti vaccine activists. And of course they know he was Bobby Kennedy's son and JFK his nephew and part of that famous family. And then they'd have images or maybe remember some tabloidy scandalous stories. But you really do fill in the who. And you do it not just with the facts of his biography, but I think a very fair analysis. And Rebecca Trazer, who's the New York magazine journalist, she's the one who says it the most forcefully. Who, who he is is a guy who was afforded so many second, third or fourth chances and lived a life without consequence, which might seem weird. He had so much tragedy in his life. But why does Rebecca say that?

[Michael Kirk]

Well, Rebecca, who's an expert on powerful men, written a lot about it, written a very good book about it. We brought her to the program basically to answer the big, big hard question, which is how does he keep. How do men like Bobby Kennedy keep coming back? What is it that keeps them going? Is it resilience? Is it something else? Is it charm? Is it money? Well, it's all of those things, to be sure. But a lot of it is the deeply held and psychological belief that he's a kind of enlightened and safe presence. And that has been Rebecca's position about other powerful men. But especially in this case Bobby Kennedy, who she interviewed, met, saw all the things she's checked off on the list, all the things she witnessed and has heard about and reported on about Bobby Kennedy Jr. And it is a tough diagnosis from Rebecca about Bobby and about the things he does and the way that he acts. And it had to be in there along with all the other friends and powerful people who like him and say he's a wonderful person.

[Mike Pesca]

Right. So to lay out some facts of the biography, he's hired by, well, he goes to Harvard. Probably didn't deserve to get in, but of course you're going to let a Kennedy get in. Some interesting details that I knew about because I talked to Kurt Andersen about that. Sells Kurt Anderson cocaine. Only time Kurt buys it. Then he becomes a member of the Manhattan DA staff. Very prestigious job. Gets hired without having even passed the bar. Struggles to do so. Eventually does and OD's on a. Not cross country flight, but a flight that either has to emergency land or does land In South Dakota. ODs in the, the bathroom of the plane and you know, he is exposed to have this fairly massive drug habit. And from that point forward there are some references to how he does rehab on both coasts. But it's not the arc of a person, from what I know about a 12 step program making amends. It's not the arc of a person who really faced his demons as much as maybe put that aside, but took up with other really destructive, self destructive, but also interpersonally destructive habits, namely sex. And this gets at. And I don't want to tell the whole story, but you tell me this gets at a through line of the documentary, which is this is an incautious person who doesn't really care who he hurts and has done so without too many consequences.

[Michael Kirk]

Yes. One of the things we do often when we do one of these biographies, we did one a couple years ago about Clarence and Ginni Thomas. It's the same method. Find out everything about them when they were kids. If you really believe the adage that if you show me the child, I'll show you the adult.

[Mike Pesca]

Seven up. One of the greatest documentary series ever is based on this.

[Michael Kirk]

Exactly. And I've done it on all Frontline makes every four years film about called the Choice about the two candidates. And I been doing this for like a century, I think. And you get to the point where you kind of. I have on call a couple of shrinks I can talk to about the character and try to kind of stay inside my lane about what I could really assert or discover or write about or talk about. In Bobby's case, a sort of universal agreement that there was profound adolescent trauma, as you would imagine there would be. Your uncle is murdered, your father is murdered. When you're 14 years old. You're in a family that doesn't know how to grieve and doesn't grieve. A lot of alcohol and other substances are consumed in your early life. You're kicked out of a couple of boarding schools where your mom, who's overwhelmed by having 10 other kids, just sends you away. And here you are self medicating with speedballs for 14 years, Self admitted self medication. And when you rehab from that, you find yourself rebuilding your life to great admiration from a lot of people. But you also find yourself once again in the pit of some kind of an addiction. Whether it's addiction or whatever it is, it's a need for a dopamine hit. You're kind of halfway dead inside from what's happened to you as a kid through no fault of your own. And sex becomes a kind of regular. By his own admission and by the evidence of lots of people who knew him. A fairly rampant problem for him. Then it becomes adulation. Addiction could become really, really, really famous. Leads you to do all kinds of things to be adored. Your life on saving the Hudson river is wearing out. You need a new cause. The cause is a really radical one that kind of ties into what you know about Mercury Poisoning in fish. It's autism in children. Here you are a child who yourself was harmed. You want to take care of kids. You've got a hero complex. A lot of people say it's a savior complex. He has it, and in a big way, and for, in some cases, for all the right reasons. But it also results in the kind of adulation that you really apparently need, according to everybody who knows him. And even though you build a great life, and even though you have wonderful kids, and even though you're a Kennedy, and even though you've got all the resources that that brings to the table, you also, by his own admission, in our film, we have his journal, we have the book he wrote.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, I wanted to ask about that. There are passages from his journal talking, I'm in Eden and all I want to do is bite the fruit. I have everything and I want more and I'm not satisfied. How did the journal become public?

[Michael Kirk]

His version of the story is that when he's in one phase of rehab, fifth step, he says it's to keep a journal of something that really bothers him. I don't know if it's medically a sex addiction. I don't really know what that is. But he has a lot of sex with a lot of people who are not his wife and who are friends of his wife, by the way, and friends of his friends or wives of his friends. He worries about it. And he keeps a journal for a year, keeping track, almost like a scorecard of how many every day, all day long. And he has this journal, and in it he also writes lots of other notes. And it's trying to be self actualized and realized and honest with yourself. He knows it's volatile and really something that could blow up if he has any future plans, like political plans. So he hides it. He says on video that we found. He hides it in a safe at his house, his nice house in Westchester County, New York. And it's hidden. But his wife, who suffers from depression, substance abuse, and somebody says, who wouldn't have depression and substance abuse if Bobby was your husband and was as unfaithful as you discovered he is, she also had some of these issues before they got married. Yeah. To be fair, did he exacerbate it? Well, you be the judge.

[Mike Pesca]

Well, he sleeps with 16 of her friends and keeps score of all of them. So that probably helps.

[Michael Kirk]

Yeah. Yeah, it sure wouldn't. Anyway, he says she found that she broke into the safe using all of her skill and ledger domain and breaks into the safe and hands the safe to her sisters for safekeeping. But released to the press if something bad should befall her, hands the journal to her sisters, hands the journal to her sisters who have it. And they, the Richardson family, her name is Mary Richardson. That's his former wife, the deceased wife. The family, the Richardson family does not like him. They know about all these things, they know about many more. And there's great antipathy between them. He says in the interview we found with him, he says she gave it to her sisters in the event that something happens. This is not a direct quote, but something like this. And very shortly thereafter she took her own life. Yeah, and that is exactly what happened.

[Mike Pesca]

So then you trace his evolution devolution to conspiracies, conspiracy theories about vaccine. But one part that's not in the documentary that I think is very interesting is in one of the same outlets that he put his thimerosal vaccine theories out to the world in rolling stone in 2004, thereabouts, he wrote an article claiming, claiming that John Kerry lost, he did lose the Ohio primary. But RFK Jr. Made the case in Rolling Stone with the imprimatur of Rolling Stone that this was a stolen election, that Kerry should have won Ohio, he should have won, if the votes were counted correctly, he should have won the presidency. Even John Kerry doesn't sign on. I wonder if you can't. This is a good, thorough, almost two hour documentary. I wonder if you looked into that because I was always very interested in that and it seemed to me kind of a toe touch in the world of respectability. So you have Rolling Stone and its self identification of a liberal, maybe muckraking journal. And then you have RFK Jr. Who's going to be congratulated by the Democratic establishment essentially for being more of a hardcore Democrat than even the guy who had the nomination. But I wonder if you looked into that, if you thought it was something like a toe touch, a what would wind up being a dry run for some of this vaccine denialism.

[Michael Kirk]

We looked at it in a kind of very cursory way because we had to make a decision. When do you send him down the political road? Because there's always these moments that happened to him all the way through his life. What many people, including me, didn't know was the extent to which after his dad died, the family elders and the party elders all believed Bobby, not John John, but Jack Kennedy's son. But Bobby was the one, was the future, was the future of the party, the scion, whatever. And they really wanted him to be because I think frankly, talking to the family members and others, he was RFK's favorite son, named after him even though there was Joe. Here's Bobby, here's young Bobby. And a lot of people say the pressure on Bobby as a 14 year old when his dad is dead, to fly the family flag, follow the rules, the well worn path to Harvard, all the way to UVA Law School and then into Morgenthau's DA office. And you're on your way, kid. And along the way you will find the people as roommates at Harvard and other places who can help you do what Jack did and what Bobby did and find a friend, find guys who are going to be in the media in the future. They will be your pals, they will run the New York observer, you will be set. And yeah, yeah, you're a heroin addict now, but you're able to compartmentalize and double dip in that process. He was regularly being groomed to be a political figure, but without fail would trapdoor these, these moments. He would blow up. And it is the recurring theme inside the biography that we're creating that Bobby either intentionally or kind of unintentionally pulls the trapdoor on himself every time he got sort of close. And it's only this time, it was only this time in the alliance with Trump that it seems like, at least so far, he hasn't yet been pull the trigger or whatever you do to drop a trapdoor and wash yourself out of high political balance.

[Mike Pesca]

I do want to, I do want to ask about that because I was definitely thinking about that. But before Trump, as you document Trump is shot, there is a moment where Kennedy calls him, it's captured on tape and you didn't get into the providence of that tape. But what was it?

[Michael Kirk]

I think it's the, I don't know what I can say. One of the things that is known is that it was shot by his son off of a, off of a computer, off a monitor. I tried to get Bobby's side of the conversation, which is very hard to get, which is impossible so far to get. But you know, that's an iconic moment that has somehow been managed well, as.

[Mike Pesca]

I understand that the sun put it out and Kennedy RFK said that was not something we meant to do. But it helped him. It very much helped him, did it not?

[Michael Kirk]

Well, judge for yourself. You've seen it. You've seen it and you've heard every detail that is necessary to understand what was happening at that moment. For Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Given especially where it lands in the movie, which is about 90 minutes in or so, and you've already watched the ups and downs, the arc and round and round he goes of Bobby Kennedy to get to that moment.

[Mike Pesca]

But up until that moment, would you rate his political campaign a success? Would you rate his. His vaccine advocacy a success? Just judged by its own merits. Not if it was, say, helping the world. Was it making him money? Was it giving him status? Was it really working out for him?

[Michael Kirk]

The vaccine stuff, according to his closest friends and him destroyed financially and otherwise. Bobby, for periods of time in his life, he managed to make a, a fairly good living on books and other things, especially once podcasts got rolling and, and the Internet picked up. He was made for social media, both in terms of his, his way of acting and his performance and, and his willingness to, to fabricate and, and, and be a kind of fabulous about stuff. So in some ways all of that was, was made for him, made to order for him. Yeah, it's an interesting question about, you know, his use of all of that, all of that stuff and how he, and how he saw himself. So he's up, he's down, he's up, he's down. Is he climbing? Does he know where he is? The vaccine stuff hurt him, but then it helped him. Once Covid happens, suddenly he's back. And he's back, as we say in the film, it was the moment for Bobby Kennedy of his whole life, the idea that suddenly warp speed was happening and vaccines were going to be injected in people. And there was already a zeitgeist in America that says, I'm not going to wear a mask. I'm not going to do this, I'm not going to do that. The government is out to lock us down. And Bobby jumped on that, that bandwagon and was born with it in some ways by watching his dad, who was very iconoclastic about a lot of things. And Bobby internalized that, the way he talks about it and said, okay, I've got to be against the government. Here we go. And now vaccines are going to be my ticket to ride. They're not something everybody hates and everybody doesn't like. And it was until it got him kicked off the web. And then once again, he's bereft. Right. He's out of. Out of it.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Michael Kirk]

Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

I just want to interrupt. This is an extremely important part of his motivation and his arc. Being kicked off Twitter and deplatformed has a profound effect on him.

[Michael Kirk]

Yeah. Once Biden becomes. Bobby's right in the world, right in the top. He's on the top of the world. He's viewed as a godsend by the growing MAGA movement. Certainly the people who are closest to him say the guy is really on a rocket ride. Now Biden gets in and Biden says, we need people to get vaccinated. I've been elected to get people vaccinated. So here we go. Let's get everybody signed up and let's stop all this disinformation that's happening. And what happens is they knock him off Instagram, they knock him off Facebook and his livelihood and his megaphone. And his opportunity to run for big office sometime in the future is gone. That's the moment that he decides to run for president. Why? Because you got to let a guy who runs for president back on major media. You got to have him on. If he's running for president and he's running as a Democrat, you got to let him on. And as somebody in the film says, that's the craziest reason I've ever heard to run for president for president. But he. He needed it and he did it. And that's what it was.

[Mike Pesca]

And we'll be back with more of Michael Kirk in a moment.

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So what are we having for lunch?

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[Mike Pesca]

So before the break we were hearing what I would consider a pretty good argument against deplatforming ever. But now my question for you, Michael. K is in all your research, did you ever come across evidence that he had a difficult time throwing his lot in with Donald Trump, given that he's from this famous Democratic family and Trump is, at the end of the day still, after all, a Republican, I don't.

[Michael Kirk]

Think he saw any room for what he believed in in the Democratic Party, which was moving in a, you know, in Biden's, in Biden's lights. There was not good. There was not even room for Kamala Harris in that world, let alone Bobby Kennedy. And he knew, he believed, they all thought he was a nut. He had made an overture too, when he was dropping out of the race that he would join in with after Biden had dropped out, that he would join in with Kamala and try to help out, bring his supporters. And he was told, we've had other people tell us this. He was told, no, thank you. Are you kidding me? So now he's going to be nowhere. He's got no party. The megaphone might go away, especially if the Democrats win. So his biggest issues, vaccines for sure, will be silenced and he will be silenced if he doesn't find somebody to hitch his star to. And that somebody had to be Donald Trump. Forget the specifics. It had to be a deal where he, Bobby Kennedy, could act kind of on his own over in the world of health and as Del Bigtree, his closest advisor at the time, said, build a whole wing onto the MAGA side of the party. That's kind of a Bobby Kennedy wing. That's the Maha wing. Well, he kind of pulled that off. And how long it will last is a whole different issue.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, that is my question. How long has he gone without self destructing?

[Michael Kirk]

Well, self destructing is something he almost always does in some way. Issues have a way of conspiring too, but his own personality, you know, can he wear out his welcome? Who knows? It's really, he's really operating. You watch him as we do. You watch him operating with an audience of one, which is President Trump. His confirmation hearings were all about that. And so far, almost everything he's done, he makes sure Trump is involved. He is with Trump on it. He probably, if he needed to, he could get all the advice he needs about this from Steve Bannon, for example, who didn't have an independent, a constituency like Bobby does. They're not really independent, but there are Maha moms. There is that whole world that was not MAGA and is with Bobby and with a marriage of convenience with Maha right now. But how long he can hold onto that it's really hard to say. He's out eight months now, nine months and he's moving fast to get the things done that he wants to get done. And people tell us that his PAC is talking about Kennedy for President in 28 movement. Of course they would be talking about it. And how that plays with Vance and Trump and the other Russ Vod and all the others in Washington, I don't really know yet. Maybe that's next on my agenda. I kind of hope so.

[Mike Pesca]

So the politics of this. I understand why Trump likes the Maha movement because not only is it bringing new people into his coalition, it's flipping. These are, many of these people are lifelong Democrats or people who identified as liberal. And when you can flip someone, that's doubly good for a politician. But I wonder if you think there are any tripwires with Trump. And this is why I say it. Trump took the vaccine. He, he doesn't necessarily tout this all the time, but he says it plenty. And he says I think you should take the vaccine and he wants credit for Operation Warp Speed. This actually became kind of bone of contention among when Kennedy testified last before the Senate. The disconnect between you think he should get the Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed, but you think vaccines are bad Anyway, my point is that Trump is not an anti vaccine guy though he understands where the politics lay on. Do you think there are any tripwires such that RFK Jr gets so far out in front of his skis in terms of asserting things scientifically that Trump says not out of goodness, but actually this is hurting me more than it's helping me.

[Michael Kirk]

So far, nothing like that. Nothing. I feel no one we've talked to has said that these are problems yet and obviously I don't have a crystal ball, so I don't really know. But knowing Kennedy, one wonders how long he can stay out there and sustain it before. I mean he has done things before, he has said things before that get him in hot water. Getting in hot water with Donald Trump may not even be anything any of us can anticipate because it's already complicated. As you've suggested, the warp speed accomplishment of Trump really believes that this was he saved millions of lives and he might have lots of people at the CDC and other places say if it wasn't for warp speed and him just basically saying go for it and get this over with because I got an election to win and I can't have millions of Americans dying every year while I'm running. That was a strong and powerful thing that happened, that really happened and Bobby was against that. So how do you match that up over the long haul over many more things that are going to happen? What happens if you have a massive measle outbreak and lots of people are, lots of little kids are dying somewhere? What happens if there's a, God forbid, another pandemic? The people we interviewed at the CDC and other places are saying, you know, it's not only whether he wants vaccines or not, it's that the infrastructure of the agencies in our healthcare system are deteriorating and degrading and something like a new pandemic, a new strain of something, are they going to be ready? And is his leadership the kind of leadership they need for that? So there's a lot of ifs in the next three years or so, in the next three months or so as we head into the winter. And I don't think, certainly I don't know and I don't think, I mean you're watching a sort of exodus from those agencies that's alarming. And what happens if we, and that's what they keep warning. What happens if we, if something happens, if a strain of something gets out of control and the thing we normally would do, which is vaccinate the heck out of everybody or get back to work with the biochemical and big pharma organizations and build some medicines that get people out of trouble. That's not the plan. And, and that's what everybody's worried about. And I would say that could be, that could be flying too close to the sun for Bobby.

[Mike Pesca]

So, so right now he's fired a 17 member vaccine advisory council. The head of the CDC was in her job for 30 days, the one he wanted and she quit. Slash was fired. You interview other important people in the vaccine world of the CDC who have left and are raising red flags.

[Michael Kirk]

Children.

[Mike Pesca]

It's harder for children to get the COVID vaccine, including ones with preconditions. It's harder in general though, not impossible, but harder. There's more friction to getting vaccines, all sorts of vaccines than there were before. How much of his anti vaccine agenda has he implemented? And maybe there are some reassurances that you know of. Here are this, here's the, here's what's still in place in terms of vaccine availability. But how far do you think he will go?

[Michael Kirk]

Well, it's not the way they think about it. This is the people at the CDC or the former people at the CDC think about it is not so much what's been taken, although a Lot has been taken. It's the signals, it's the misinformation, it's the, it's the head of HHS being, being casting aspersions and being suspicious about them and saying, I'm just asking hard questions, I'm not going to stop them, but I'm just asking questions. Do you really want to do that? And that what happens is people who are always parents, especially new parents, always a little wary of what am I going to put in my kid, what am I putting in my kid to have somebody in a position of his kind of authority. I mean it causes people not to want to get a vaccination for their kid or themselves. And doctors worry about it, insurance companies worry about it. It's not like it's a policy that says that'll be it for vaccinations. It's the way that it undermines confidence in science and in fact based, that kind of fact based reasoning for what Bobby and Bobby's group argues are the right reasons. These people are in the pockets of big pharma. It's all about a big money grab for everybody and they're not doing real science and they never did do real science and that only he's doing real science, gold standard science. So you're already arguing at some level that is about just having the argument as you look at it. You say this is causing doctors to have to explain the most basic elements of medical care that we've had for a generation or two, which is your little kid needs a tetanus shot or I mean a whooping cough shot, you need measles shots, you need, let's get rid of mumps. We don't have it anymore. Why would we want to have it? And if that reaches some point where classrooms and schools have half the kids or a third of the kids who aren't vaccinated there, what happens to those kids? It's a really, really, really slippery slope. And I don't know that anybody knows how bad it really could be. Bobby might be right, but if he's really wrong, as they say to us, millions and millions and millions of lives all over the world are at stake.

[Mike Pesca]

What are his next big agenda items?

[Michael Kirk]

I don't know. I don't think he really knows that we know of. But it's no surprise that it started with the vaccines, started with cutting back 20,000 employees, just moving the way they're moving toward what the scientists there say is an anti science, anti rational way of thinking about things in a much more. I mean it's interesting to me. I thought he'd be spending a tremendous amount of time on the food stuff. You're not seeing a lot of headlines about the food stuff. You're seeing headlines about Tylenol and circumcision and all the other things that they talk about.

[Mike Pesca]

Fruit loop colors have been in the.

[Michael Kirk]

News that made a headline. That was it. Yeah. Red dye number four. But it's not nearly what I thought it would be because I think that is for him. It was a very smart thing of him to not go for vaccines. But he finally made the alliance with Trump that he, because of Trump's relationship to vaccines, but he also, because of his own, he knows that's kryptonite. So his creation of Maha, basically, as he ran, as he started to run, and the phrase and everything is something that he invented. He'd never really been in the food space before, but I thought he'd be using it a lot more now as they get started. And then he do his moves. But I think he's moving as fast as he can through the anti vax world now that he's there. And he's getting a lot of props from his vaccine cohort, which has been on the outs around America for 30 or 40 years. They're finally having their day and they've got their guy and he's doing what he always said he would do. And it's a valedictory moment for a guy who's been in the wilderness for 20 years on an issue. You can see that he would say, especially if he really believes it, we're gonna go on the thing I've been fighting for for all this time. And that will knock all kinds of barriers down and get all kinds of people out of here so that I can do whatever else occurs to us to do next. But I don't have that crystal ball.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. The name of the documentary, the Frontline documentary, is the rise of RFK Jr. It was directed by Michael Kirk, began streaming on October 21st. You should check it out. It is worth attention and I'm going to say consternation. Thank you so much, Michael.

[Michael Kirk]

My pleasure. Thanks. Great to be here.

[Mike Pesca]

And that's it for today's show. Cory Wara produces the gist. Ashley Khan is our production coordinator. Jeff Craig runs our socials. And Michelle Pesca is the COO of Peach Fish Productions. She cares improvement. And thanks for listening.

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